This invention relates to stuffing machines of the type which make sausages and similar stuffed meat and stuffed food products, and more particularly to discharge trays for such machines.
Sausage making and the making of similar stuffed meat and stuffed food products have become highly automated. As a result of significant, valuable research in the United States, a variety of machines have been successfully developed for the automated production of stuffed meat products. One such machine is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,142,273 issued Mar. 6, 1979 to Robert W. Gay and assigned to Rheem Manufacturing Company, New York, N.Y. In a machine such as that disclosed in the identified patent, comminuted sausage material is pumped from a vat to a stuffing horn assembly. Shirred casing is applied over the end of a stuffing horn of the assembly, and after the horn with the casing is indexed into position, the sausage material is pumped through the horn. The sausage material and casing leave the horn simultaneously, through a casing brake, with the sausage material filling the casing. A clipper mechanism intermittently voids and clips the stuffed casing, to define the end of an exiting sausage product and the beginning of the next product. The exiting product exits onto a discharge tray, from which the product is dropped to a conveyor line or for manual handling. Discharge occurs by a rolling, downward and lateral discharge to a level below the machine working height.
While the discharge tray of the identified patent has been and is desirable, significant opportunity has existed for improvement. Factors impacting discharge tray design include, among others, the need to receive product in the location where it exits the stuffing horn, the need to discharge the product to a desirable location, the need to avoid engagement with the clipping mechanism, the need to receive product of a variety of diameters and lengths, the need to handle the product without damage, and the need to accomplish discharge with a mechanism which is not complex, not expensive of energy, and not expensive of manufacture.